Thursday, January 1, 2009

Wii'ing in the New Year

Yeah, Aaron got a Wii from Jessica's family for Christmas. Wow, he got some GREAT in-laws! At least my delayed gift for him can wait. (If it's not here by the end of the week, SOMEONE is getting a nasty e-mail!)

Audrey and Shaun came over to help clear out a corner in the room where most of their belongings are stored, so tomorrow, when the maintenance man comes in to fix the ceiling, he has clear access to the damaged corner. (Dang leak... But hey, it's not my fault!) Since Aaron had already invited me over, I just caught a ride over with them.

I did get to see my niece, Amber (who had been spending a week from Christmas to yesterday with her mother), open her gift to me. She seemed to like it, a copy of The Random House Book of Fairy Tales. Of course, everyone else gave her toys and DVDs... I can at least say I attempted to bring some culture in her life. (I checked, their "Snow White" ends with the sadistic ending where the Wicked Queen is made to dance in red-hot iron shoes. Nice!)

Shaun and I did some rounds on Mario Party DS, and he, Audrey, Jessica, and I attempted to do a multiplayer on the version of Crash Burnout for the DS. Let me tell you, the XBox version makes more sense and is more fun! (What other game has the objective of crashing into cars and trying to make the most damage?)

So, we had some Papa Murphy's pizza, which is always good, along with some cheesy bread, chicken wings, and some kind of caramel bread. Seeing as it was just six of us, we had PLENTY of leftovers of EVERYTHING.

Then, we hit the Wii!

Seriously, with Audrey and Shaun over there, Aaron and Jessica's place is full of gaming systems. Between them, they have four Nintendo DS systems, two Gamecubes, Aaron's Wii and Playstation, and Shaun's XBox and Playstation 2.

Up first was Mario Kart Wii, with Audrey and Shaun using Wii-motes attached to Wii-wheels, and Aaron and I using Gamecube controllers. I actually did pretty well sometimes, commenting, "I'm in 2nd place? That's not natural! But Oak Express is!" (I'd link to one of those commercials on YouTube, but there's none on there.) The control took some getting used to, and Wario's Mines and the SNES Ghost track are HELL, but it's a fun game, and a nice step up from Double Dash!

Aaron also has Super Smash Bros. Brawl, but we didn't play, as we only had two Wii-motes. (I commented they needed more, and was met with, "They're about $40 each, want to buy them for us?")

We soon went over to Wii Sports, where we did two rounds of bowling, and after the second round, Shaun left for work. (I actually won the second round! That is NOT natural!)

After that, we did Wii Play, which Aaron was using for the first time, and we had to unlock the next game by playing Shooting Range, which pretty much Duck Hunt for Wii, except there's only one or two ducks per round, and most of the time, you're firing at balloons, targets, clay pigeons, empty soda cans, and UFOs. After Aaron and I did that, we turned it over to Audrey and Amber, who did a round of a game where you matched look-a-likes in a crowd.

The last game we put in for 2008 was Game Party 2, where we did "Ping Cup" (which I stunk at), "Darts" (which I stunk at the first round, but won the second round!), and "Bean Bags," which Aaron and I won two minutes before the new year!

Then we switched over to footage from Times Square (which I realized was recorded, as New York is one hour ahead of Missouri, knowing these time zones takes some fun out of life!), and shared some sparkling, non-alcoholic grape juice. (We had Amber with us...)